My Deepest SecretA Prequel to Hidalgo
by LadyofDodge
Summary: Kitty Russell sat at the Queen Anne writing desk staring into the darkness of the Dodge City night. Looking down at the blank page of the leather-bound journal in front of her, she dipped her pen into the inky black bottle by her right hand and began....


**MY DEEPEST SECRET---A PREQUEL TO "HIDALGO"**

_Kitty Russell sat at the polished Queen Anne writing desk, staring out into the Dodge City night. She glanced down at the blank page of the leather-bound journal before her. Then, squaring her shoulders and gathering a steadying breath, she dipped her pen into the inky blackness of the small bottle by her right hand and began...._

I walked home in the damp mist of early dawn, my footsteps slow and leaden on the empty boardwalk. I seldom go down to the stable to see Matt ride away. We almost always say our good-byes in the privacy of my room where no eyes can see our lingering kisses, where no ears can hear my whispered plea, "Don't you get lost out there, Cowboy," or his tender, loving response in my ear, "Not a chance, honey; not a chance."

After the balcony door closed behind him, I moved, as I always do, to the window and watched him round the corner onto Front Street, watched those long, muscular legs propel him all too quickly away from me--and toward the unknown danger of a strange and lawless place somewhere across the Mexican border.

Usually when those broad shoulders disappear from view, I crawl back into the bed, all too big and empty without him, to fall back to sleep with my arms hugging his pillow and his distinctive scent--outdoorsy and masculine --enveloping me. But this morning, this morning I had an overwhelming need to touch him one more time, to taste one last warm kiss on my lips.

Acting on that impulse, I stepped into my carpet slippers, threw my old red cloak over my shoulders and sped down the back stairs, running as fast as I could in the direction of the livery stable.

And, of course, he held me close in those strong arms for a final moment, touching my hair, caressing the small of my back. He cupped my face in his hands and lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me with full, soft lips--not a hurried good-bye, but a kiss as slow and sweet and leisurely as if he had the entire day ahead of him. Which, of course, he did not, and at long last he reluctantly dropped his hands to my shoulders. "Kitty, I...I have to..." He nodded his head in the direction of the faithful buckskin standing patiently just outside the stable door.

I clasped one of those huge, calloused hands in mine and brushed my lips against it. Then I lifted my chin and flashed him a smile that we both pretended was genuine. _"Vaya con dios, _Cowboy_."_

Arms wrapped around each other, we walked outside just as the first pink streaks of dawn began to appear on the horizon. I watched as he swung his big body into the saddle. Giving me a nod and a quiet, "I'll see you later, Kitty," he turned toward the south and out of town.

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I knew he wouldn't look back at me. He never does--changing from tender lover to stoic lawman in the blink of an eye. Still, I stood in the swirling dust and straw making certain that he was gone before I allowed the blinding tears to fall.

I walked back to the Long Branch without really seeing where I was going and climbed the stairs, seeking the sanctuary of my room. A familiar nauseating fear roiled through my stomach, sending me to the adjoining water closet and the old enamel basin I keep for just such purposes.

That's how it's always been for me. Sixteen years of watching him ride away, each time wondering if I will see him again. Sixteen years of waiting, waiting for days and nights and weeks on end. And sixteen years of living with the constant, sickening fear that one day this good and decent man will ride out in the early dawn never to return.

You'd think it would get easier over the years, but instead it's gotten worse, for as his reputation has grown, so, too, has the danger. There are two-bit gunslingers everywhere, each only too eager to earn his name and fame as the one to bring down a legendary lawman.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't change my life, or my man, for anything in this world. I love him totally and completely and he's worth all the worry and the fear. When he's at home he's loving and kind and he makes me happy. Even now, I can't help but smile as I think of him--his long arms wrapped around me, his face burrowed in the curve of my neck, my fingers laced in his shaggy curls....

I see to it that he eats and sleeps and doesn't catch cold. And I try to protect him as I would a child. For in many ways, that's what he is--a child tilting at windmills, believing it is his duty, his calling, to keep the peace and make this wild and lawless land a safer place. But he's not a child, and I can't reprimand him and make him stay home with me--or for me. He's a man--a brave and valiant man who sees wrong and tries to right it, sees evil and tries to conquer it.

But it's hell for me when he's away. For my own sanity I try to maintain some semblance of normalcy when he's gone, meeting with drummers and balancing the books by day and working the saloon by night. My "boys"--Doc and Festus and Sam--watch over me a little more closely than usual. We've never talked about it, but in my heart I know that's a promise they made to Matt years ago--to keep an eye on me and to distract me in his absence. And they try; they do their best to keep me cheerful. But no matter their good intentions, they can't help me. Not one of them can possibly know how I feel...how it is for me. They don't know what it is to love him, to be his woman--to miss the warmth of his smile and the tender love in his eyes--and to live with the terror, the unmitigated terror that this time, this time he might not return.

When he's overdue and there's no word I always imagine the worst because the worst is such a real and blatant possibility. The best I can hope is that some kind and decent soul will find my sick or injured man and care for him in my absence, nursing him until he's strong enough to come back home to me.

As the days wear on, my mirror reflects the empty, haunted look in my eyes and the pallor of my skin, brought on by anxious days and sleepless nights. And Doc asks if I'm all right--says he wants to check me over. As if all his pills and powders combined could ease the worry in my mind or the ache in my heart!

Not one person in all of Dodge knows what it's like for me. And I can't tell them. It's a fear I can never share with anyone. To give it voice might tempt the fates that move like tumbleweeds across the Kansas prairie.

And so I turn again to you, my journal--my faithful confidante. Over the years you have shared my hopes and my fears without judgment, and you have kept me sane. Your pages are mottled and stained from my tears, your bindings loose from the trembling hands that have held you. You are my deepest secret--my only secret--the one part of my life that I have never shared with Matt. And I never will. I can't. He must never know how it is for me when he's away for it would worry him. And for him to worry, or even think about me so much as a fraction of a second, could be a matter of life or death--_**his**_ life or death.

But I can't--I won't--think about that now. Instead, I'll turn my face into his pillow and inhale his scent once more, knowing that somewhere in that vast dark night is a big and handsome man who who wears a badge--and who loves me. And I'll fall asleep with a familiar refrain whispering in my heart, _"Don't you get lost out there, Cowboy."_

.

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End file.
